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Let’s say you run a rowdy bar. One night, a drunken patron declares that he’s a dedicated Nazi, hates Jews and that the Holocaust never happened. In some jurisdictions, he could be prosecuted for hate speech. In Germany, there’s also a law against Holocaust denial, so he could be tried on that charge. You certainly won’t let him back in your bar. But should you be held liable for what he said? Were you quick enough to step in and tell him that he’s out of order? Maybe you were too focused on lubricating the conversation to keep tabs on the result.

Internet webmasters are expected to monitor their sites for illegal or inappropriate content. Most Internet companies have policies for dealing with such content, such as takedowns in response to complaints and other feedback. But this may not be enough to escape prosecution in Thailand, which is on the warpath against online political speech. A high-profile trial of an Internet webmaster accused of not keeping sufficiently close tabs on her customers – just like the bar owner – has gotten plenty of attention lately. It has even rung alarm bells among global companies. They worry that Thailand’s clampdown on websites is bad for free speech and for e-commerce.

Here’s what the Asia Internet Coalition, which includes Yahoo, Google, eBay and other big tech names, said this week [pdf]:

By holding an intermediary liable for the actions of its users, this case could set a dangerous precedent and have a significant long-term impact on Thailand's economy. It could also end up denying Thai Internet users access to many of the online services they use everyday.

The intermediary in the dock is Chiranuch Premchaiporn, a 44-year-old Thai who runs Prachatai, a political website that used to host a popular online forum. She faces up to 20 years in jail if found guilty of violating Thailand’s 2007 Computer Crimes Act. Prachatai closed its forums last year and other political websites have either closed their online forums or restricted the use of anonymous comments. The Asia Internet Coalition argued that “responsible intermediaries” should be protected from prosecution and that to do otherwise could have a “significant detrimental impact” on Thailand’s online economy.

Thailand was once a relative bastion of free speech in a repressive region but has rowed rapidly backwards since a coup in 2006. As political tensions have risen, conservatives have launched a witch hunt to find enemies of Thailand’s royal family. The monarchy is supposed to be apolitical, but this is a fiction. Dozens of Thais and a Thai-American are either on trial, facing trial or in prison for breaching Thailand’s royal defamation law. The same excuse has been used to block thousands of web pages.

Premchaiporn’s alleged crime was to fail to instantly delete anti-monarchy posts. She says that she did remove offensive comments when asked by authorities. The prosecution has said that she had no connection to the posters. But she is still being held liable for what they wrote. Just like the hypothetical bar owner, hers is a sin of omission.

This isn’t the first time that global companies have faced Thailand’s royalist hysteria. In 2009, a Thai engineer was sentenced to 10 years in jail for posting a video on Youtube that ridiculed Thai royalty. When the clip first aired in 2007, Thailand blocked YouTube. It later lifted the block, but asked Youtube to take down videos that touched on taboo royal topics. While it’s debatable how far Google et al should go to censor their content for local sensitivities, takedown requests are obviously preferable to denying access to websites, both from a business perspective and the wishes of customers. As for putting webmasters on trial, Premchaiporn's case marks a dismal first for Thailand. Here's hoping it doesn't start a trend.